The FP7-SME-2010-1 project “Intensified Heat Transfer Technologies for Enhanced Heat Recovery- INTHEAT” was running Dec 2010 – Nov 2012. As an SME-oriented project, it was focused on development of innovative technologies by RTD participants for the benefit of SME partners. The Consortium included ten partners: 4 Research Centres of Excellence, 5 European SMEs, including 3 heat exchange equipment manufacturers, 1 heat recovery system software developer and also 1 industrial user.

The core part of the Project was the development of methodologies to select and rigorously engineer the appropriate type of enhancement technology into energy optimisation studies to a practical level, whereby process plant engineers can plan and carry out plant energy reduction programmes in which they have confidence.

The most efficient way to decrease energy consumption and the release of greenhouse gases from the process industries is to increase heat recovery. The cleanest energy is the energy saved by improved efficiency. Whilst heat recovery is widely practised, it is almost never carried out to its maximum potential.

This project identified the maximum potential for heat recovery and allowed considerable improvement in heat recovery through the application of process intensification approach and associated equipment. The conventional heat exchanger technology used in the process industries is mature, and yet various new ways have recently been developed to significantly enhance heat exchanger performance. These new techniques do not need to be applied through the whole heat recovery system, but mainly at those critical parts that limit the system performance. Novel techniques need to be developed and exploited to improve the performance of existing systems, as well as improve the performance of new plant design. This project will develop an approach to the improvement of heat recovery by considering the total energy systems and identifying appropriate places to apply the new intensification technology to make a step change improvement in heat recovery.

As a result of the Project, the SME Partners:

- were able to enhance their understanding of heat exchange under fouling;